Some of the teachers of IIEST Shibpur have written to the chairman of the institute’s board of governors about the “abnormal delay” in the faculty recruitment process which, they claimed, had started in 2019.
At least 100-odd positions are vacant in the institute, which has witnessed a jump in student intake over the past few years, said the teachers.
The teachers have written that the many vacant positions are affecting teaching-learning and research activities and negatively impacting the institute’s national and global rankings.
Tapendu Mandal, general secretary of the institute’s teachers’ association who signed the letter, said going by the mandate of the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), the institute should have one teacher for every 12 students.
“But because of the delay in faculty recruitment, the institute now has one teacher for every 20 students. In the letter it has been mentioned that no fresh appointment has happened since 2019,” he said.
Mandal explained that a poor teacher-student ratio was negatively impacting the institute’s standing before ranking agencies like the National Ranking Institutional Framework (NIRF) because they allot scores factoring in the teacher-student ratio, which constitutes one of the ranking parameters.
NIRF is an annual ranking exercise carried out by the Union education ministry.
The institute last year slipped to 40th position in the engineering category from its earlier rank of 27 in 2021 and 21 in 2020.
Vasudev. K. Atre, the chairperson of the IIEST’s board of governors, told The Telegraph: “I have received a letter from the teachers about this delay in faculty recruitment. But this issue, they should approach the institute’s director.” Calls and text messages to IIEST director Parthasarathi Chakrabarti failed to elicit any response.
The teachers have written to Atre: “With great disappointment, we write this to draw your kind attention to the abnormal delay in completing the ongoing faculty recruitment… You also shared the same concern with the teachers and the HoDs (department heads) during your recent visit to the campus.” The students’ intake rose with the introduction of a quota for financially weak candidates belonging to the general category in 2019. This quota was introduced by adding seats.
The institute is relying on the service of the visiting faculties to meet the crisis of shortage of teachers.
Bangla ‘smuggler’
A suspected Bangladeshi smuggler died after the BSF reportedly fired pellets at a group that was apparently trying to smuggle cough syrups to Bangladesh at a village near the India-Bangladesh border on Friday.
While the BSF team were looking for the group, five six people, armed with sharp weapons, reportedly attacked the BSF team. The BSF fire pellets at them and the pellets hit one of the men in the group while the others fled toward Bangladesh.